our relief and joy when we were informed that we would get copies of it were really too deep for words.

tics he had necessarily to quote, and through these the most difficult of all matter to report-he galloped at a pace that paralyzed the fingers of the reporters. Ordinarily Mr. Fowler is, Of the men in the front rank Mr. like Mr. Shaw Lefevre, Mr. Acland, Asquith is the most difficult to report. Mr. Gardner, or Mr. Bryce, compara- He is clear and distinct in utterance, tively easy. But I cannot say as much but he is excessively rapid. A refor Sir M. Kay-Shuttleworth, Sir Ed-porter following him on a "verbatim ward Grey, Mr. Arnold Morley, and note" has very little breathing time. Mr. George Russell; and perhaps Mr. He never pauses in the course of a Sydney Buxton should also be included speech. His clear-cut sentences in this category of difficult speakers on long, rotund, and full-bodied — come the Treasury Bench. flowing uninterruptedly from his lips at a steady, pitiless rate of between Now that Lord Randolph Churchill one hundred and sixty and one hundred has passed away, Mr. Balfour is, after and seventy words per minute. And Sir R. Webster and Mr. Matthews, then so subtle is his use of phrases, so probably the most difficult speaker on delicate are the shades of meaning he the front Opposition Bench. He is conveys by his critical selection of generally easy to take when he makes them, that every word of a sentence an important speech, but latterly in must be given if you are to retain its discussions in committee he has devel-original force and color. Amongst oped a very rapid style of speaking. A other men of distinction who are diffichange for the worse, in the reportorial cult speakers are Sir Charles Dilke, sense, has also come over Sir William Sir Henry James, and Mr. Courtney. Harcourt. When Sir William takes Mr. Courtney is by no means a fast part in an important debate — a debate speaker; and when he is lifted by in which each speaker endeavors to strong emotion, out of his ordinary make the most of his powers he is mood, as in the case of his celebrated one of the most delightful and easiest speech last session on the Evicted Tenof men to report, but during the dis-ants Bill, he is easy to report. His cussions in committee on his budget ordinary mood, however, is very trylast session he gave the gallery men ing. His pedantic and philosophic many bad quarters of an hour. Indis-points make too great a strain on the tinctness was the great fault of which common-sense mind of the average rewe had reason to complain. The right porter. Sir Henry James is rapid, honorable gentleman had the habit of involved, and indistinct; and the exturning his back on the gallery and traordinary fluency and swiftness of speaking down the chamber with the utterance of Sir Charles Dilke make result, of course, that we could not it difficult for the fastest short-hand hear him, and much of what he is re-writer to keep pace with him. Of the ported to have said during these discus- Irish representatives, Mr. McCarthy, sions is mere guess work. However, Mr. John Redmond, Mr. W. O'Brien, gallery men can forgive him many Mr. T. M. Healy, Mr. T. P. O'Connor things, for he did them an excellent on the Nationalist side, and Colonel service last session. His speech intro- Saunderson, Mr. Carson, Mr. David ducing the budget made about eight Plunket, and Mr. T. W. Russell on the columns in the newspapers. He read Unionist side, are easy to report. Mr. it in the House, for he had it type- Dillon is very rapid, but very distinct; written, and he subsequently sent Mr. Blake rarely speaks, but when he copies of it up to the gallery. It was a does, his strange and unfamiliar style, speech that was full of figures. It with its portentously long sentences, is would have been difficult to take a difficult to master; and Mr. Sexton's full and accurate note of it; and somarvellous faculty of words and phrase

making often tests the skill of the most without foundation. A reporter is no expert reporter. more influenced in his work by his political opinions than is a doctor or a lawyer.

Let us see now what means are at

for rest, recreation, and refreshment. There is a good dining-room, overlooking Palace Yard, the walls of which are hung with portraits of distinguished gallery men who have gone to the happy land where there are no Parliamentary orators and no newspapers. The menu card shows a list of dishes - soups, fish, joints, entrées, pastries, and wines, etc., - suitable to the sim

It may be asked whether reporters often find it necessary to improve the speeches of members of Parliament. Well, in the case of any of the lead-the disposal of members of the gallery ing men what the reporters aim at is to give a verbatim transcript of the speech to give the exact words of the speaker in the order and form in which they are uttered. If a reporter condenses in such a case, it is because orders have come from the newspaper office that space is limited and that "copy" must be kept down. But if the necessary space is available the desire of the reporter is to give every-ple tastes and limited purses of journalthing. Repetitions are retained when ists. Formerly the kitchen committee they are used to drive home a propo- catered for us as well as for the memsition to imprint it on the minds of bers of Parliament, but we found it the audience; and even redundancies agreed neither with our digestions nor and archaic expressions are given when our purses. Now the catering is done they occur and they rarely do-in by a special contractor to the gallery, first-person reports of speeches on im- to whom the authorities of the House portant subjects by leading Parliamen- -or rather the State-give a grant of tarians. Indeed, these speeches are, 1007. on the declaration of a contract, as a rule, so perfect in diction that it an annual subsidy of 251. towards the would be presumptuous on the part of renewal of plant, and the necessary the reporter to attempt to make the kitchen accommodation, with lights, language more forcible or more graphic. etc., rent free. After dinner the reBut the speeches of smaller men often porter may retire to the smoking-room, need improvement. Many of them sacred to tobacco, coffee, and gossip, habitually clothe their hazy ideas in or he may indulge there in games of lax, loose, and disjointed talk, which, chess or draughts, or read the evening if reported as uttered, would mar or papers, or the weekly and monthly rain their reputations. But even when magazines, with which the room is librevising and condensing the speeches erally supplied. The walls of this room of these men the conscientious re- are also hung with portraits of dead porter retains, as far as possible, the reporters, photographic groups taken at exact phraseology that has been used. some of the annual summer outings If this course were not generally fol- of the members of the gallery, and lowed by the reporters, the individu- with Vanity Fair cartoons of eminent ality of speeches in temperament and Parliamentarians. Then, again, there diction, their actuality and color, would is a tea-room, where one can enjoy, be lost. All would be alike so far as with a cup of tea, the newspapers and the outward dress of language is con- magazines, or a book from the library, cerned; all would be reduced or raised which has been mainly contributed by to the same monotonous level. Some members of the gallery; and finally people may still retain the notion there is a bar, where men seek sustewhich had some vogue in the early days of reporting, that reporters "color" their reports of speeches, according to their own political opinions. But the idea, if it does exist, is utterly

nance and courage to bear them well through the ordeal of a quarter of an hour's turn of Mr. Asquith or Sir Henry James.

Holders of non-transferable tickets | years ago, Major Rennell, of the Honpay the small sessional subscription of orable East India Company's service, 2s. 6d. to defray certain necessary ex- did, as surveyor-general of Bengal, penses, and elect annually a committee of twelve to manage affairs and look after the interests of the gallery.

survey and map out a large portion of the province; but for the most part, knowledge of the topography of the interior was derived only from the It will be seen, therefore, that the route-maps of travellers and of armies members of the reporters' gallery now in the field. Route-surveys, however, enjoy at Westminster many of the ad- are necessarily inaccurate; and about vantages of a good club. It is true the beginning of the present century, that at times the pressure on the ac- one William Lambton, captain and commodation is great, and some dis- afterwards colonel in the company's comfort ensues. But taking it all in service, drew up a plan for the measall, the lot of the Parliamentary re-urement of a long "arc of the meporter is now a very happy one, espe- ridian," and for a trigonometrical cially as compared with that of his survey of the whole of the southern predecessor, who, in the old House portion of India. It is said that that was burned down in 1834, had to scramble for places with mere sightseers in the strangers' gallery; or, later still, in the present House, when, though he had a special gallery in which to take notes, he had no rooms governor of Madras, and was sancfor writing or refreshments till 1880, and had, previous to that year, to hurry after his "turn" at note-taking to his office in Fleet Street or in the Strand, or to an inn at Westminster to prepare his copy.

MICHAEL MACDONAGH.

From Chambers' Journal.
THE GREAT INDIAN SURVEY.

Lambton elaborated this plan on the suggestion of Colonel Wellesley (afterwards Duke of Wellington) in or about 1800. However this may be, the project was warmly supported by the

tioned by the government, with Colonel Lambton as director of operations, and two lieutenants of the company's service as assistants. The first proceeding was to obtain a baseline, and this was obtained, after long and patient experiments, on a stretch of land about seven and a half miles long, near Madras, in April, 1802. This, then, was the beginning of the Trigonometrical Survey of India, which has proceeded without cessation -except during the Mutiny-ever since, and is still going on.

But what is a trigonometrical survey? We will endeavor to explain.

IN the last official decennial Report on the Progress and Condition of India (1882-92), issued from the India Office, it is incidentally mentioned that the great Trigonometrical Survey was ap- It is easy enough to measure the disproaching its centenary. It is now tance from one place to another; but almost complete, only the triangulation it is a complicated process to combine of outlying parts of Burma and Be- all the measurements and lay them luchistan remaining in progress; and down so accurately on paper as to form as it is one of the most remarkable a perfect map, exact in all its proporworks ever undertaken, and is re-tions and dimensions. For such a purnowned in other countries for the ex-pose the method usually adopted is the tent of the operations and the boldness trigonometrical one, and trigonometry, of their conception, we propose to give as every schoolboy knows, is the measa brief account of the scheme. urement of triangles.

Up to the beginning of the present In preparing to map out a new councentury the geography of the interior try, then, the first thing to do is to form of the Indian Peninsula was little a base-line. Before this can be done, known. Rather more than a hundred a good deal of superficial, or ocular.

surveying is needed-the surveyors base-line, he sights one of the distant examining the ground carefully within flagposts, and measures the angle an agreed radius, so as to gain a gen- formed by it with the other end of the eral idea of its main features and prom-base-line. Then he goes over to the inent marks. A place is then selected other end and measures the angle on which can best be drawn a long formed with the second distant flagstraight line within sight of flags placed post. He is thus able to calculate the at various points in such a way that lines drawn from one to the other will form a series of triangles. At least two of these flag-stations must be visible from the base-line, which has to be measured with the extremest accuracy.

corrections were made according to the rate of expansion. The steel chain was regulated by a standard chain, whose length had been fixed at a temperature of fifty degrees. Every degree Fahrenheit in the temperature required a correction of 00725 inch in the chain.

lines between the outer ends of the of starting-point, he used a chain sim"offsets." By means of these "off-ilar to what some of us have seen used sets," and of smaller triangles and by the Ordnance surveyors in this measured lines within the main tri-country. It was supported on tripods angles, the local surveyor fills in the twenty feet high, and was adjusted and details of the map. tightened by a delicate screw-arrangeThis, in brief, is the process of tri-ment. On each tripod was placed a angulation, or trigonometrical survey. thermometer, to determine the temperBut in a large country like India, to ature of the chain, and the necessary form a continuous network of triangles from south to north would have made the progress too slow. Instead of a network, therefore, what is known as the " "gridiron system has been adopted. The "gridiron means a series of chains of triangulation, running north and south, with cross connections It took forty-two days to measure the east and west. These chains or strings Madras base-line, before the first angle of triangles leave large interior spaces could be taken. Some thirty years to be filled up by the local surveyors, later, Colonel Colby of the Irish Survey while the main survey goes on. The invented a self-correcting method of main triangles necessarily vary much measuring lines by using bars instead in size with the character of the coun- of chains. These bars are composite try, and in India have ranged from of brass and iron, and so joined that fifteen to thirty miles or so of base. movements of contraction and expanSuch long distances required the most perfect instruments, and involved great physical exertion. It will be obvious that to measure for checking purposes a base-line of several miles, must be a very much more difficult and arduous task than to measure one of, say, one mile.

sion take place evenly at the extremities. When this new apparatus was introduced, the old base-lines were remeasured with it, and the calculations revised.

From Madras, Lambton carried his triangles inland, westward to Bangalore. This distance of one hundred A thing always aimed at in trigono- and sixty miles occupied two years to metrical surveys is to have neither cover, and then it was determined to very acute nor very wide angles-measure with the chain a base of verinever sharper" than thirty degrees, fication, as already explained. The nor wider than a right angle (ninety measurement revealed a difference of degrees). For a base-line as great a length as possible is desirable, but in fact it is seldom practicable to get one of more than seven or eight miles in length, for the surface must be level and unencumbered enough to leave each end perfectly visible from the tance across from Madras was then other, and to leave the signal-stations to form the first triangle visible from both ends. But when only a short base-line can be measured by the chain, there are methods of elaborating from it, by triangulation, lines as long as may be necessary.

When Colonel Lambton succeeded in laying down his base-line in 1802 near Madras, with the Observatory as a sort

only three and three-quarter inches from the calculation founded on the Madras base-line. The Bangalore line was then made the base of a fresh series of triangles right across to the west coast, at Mangalore. The dis

found to be three hundred and sixty miles, and not four hundred miles, as had up till then been given on the maps.

66

me

The new base-line at Bangalore was taken as the foundation of a long ridional" series of triangles to be carried right through the heart of the country from Cape Comorin, in the extreme south, to the Himalayas, in